Did I mention that it was 19 degrees Fahrenheit in Boston the morning we left?

It is downright amazing what you can discover during four full days away from your children. For example, my wife and I? Turns out we really do love each other, and we’d want to be together even if we didn’t have two kids and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of debt listed under both of our names!

It was sometime during day three or four of our recent vacation in Key West that we realized we hadn’t had a single quarrel or nasty word for each other since we left the house. This was noticeable only because of the fact that we, you know, normally spend a good portion of the day verbally bludgeoning each other with our mostly parenthood-induced frustrations in order to avoid doing what they did in the old days: smack the piss out of the kids when they didn’t listen.

And speaking of the kids: the other big vacation revelation? Zan and Jayna won’t die or render the planet asunder in a fit of distress if we leave them home while we take a multi-night excursion during which we can actually speak to each other in complete sentences, and also not have to spell out at least one word per conversation in order to avoid setting off some kind of catastrophic chain reaction with the K-I-D-S. This, too, was a huge epiphany, because my single biggest anxiety about going on this vacation was my fear that Zan would freak the fuck out about us leaving him for so long—I mean, like, full-on, thermonuclear Peter Petrelli.

No, I’m not kidding. When we were leaving the house for an overnight stay on New Year’s Eve of last year, he was so distraught that he had to be physically peeled off of Wonder Woman so that we could get out the door, to the extent that he unintentionally tore her coat in the process. What? Separation issues? Hmmm … you know, you might be onto something there. Thanks! We’ll have to look into that!

Our flight from Boston to Florida departed at 7 a.m., and we were hell bent on avoiding another coat-ripping incident, so we loaded the bags into the car the night before, bade the children farewell at bedtime, and set our alarm clock for—I can hardly even type this—4:15 a.m. (which, even when referring to it in the past tense, makes my insides cinch themselves into a steel-cable-like knot; I think I used up during army basic training all of my ability to rise at an ungodly hour—and by “ungodly,” I mean any hour during which I can’t clearly see the entire sun above the closest treeline.) The plan seemed foolproof … that is, until Wonder Woman came down the hall and said to my corpse-like self as I struggled to get my shit together: “We have to leave now! Like, right now!” Yes, Zan—whom we had led to believe that we would already be gone when he awoke—was awake, and my mother-in-law was doing her best to keep him in bed while we made good our escape, but, fuckohfuckohfuck, was this really going to turn into the very fiasco I had feared it might?

Amazingly, the answer turned out to be “No”—despite the fact that Wonder Woman, after answering a phonecall from Zan while we were still in the driveway, ended up going back in and granting his request for one last goodbye, which he apparently handled quite well.

Only two more phone conversations took place during our entire trip, and Zan was in tears for both, but my wonderful, amazing, benevolent—did I mention wonderful and amazing?—in-laws (for whom major ass-kissing is in order, as their childcare services facilitated four of the greatest days of my marriage) said he was only upset during those two calls, and was otherwise fine—which probably had something to do with the fact that they bought the kids roughly 9 gazillion tons of shit while we were away, and spent every waking moment trying to distract them with games and activities and excursions of all kinds. I’m working on a life-sized, stained-glass window of them, which I shall hang in the temple I plan to build in their honor.

So, with the burdens of parenthood temporarily removed from our weary shoulders, what ever did we do with ourselves during our first vacation alone since our honeymoon way back in the late 1900s? Nothing much—you know, other than have the single greatest time ever.

The downside of not traveling as a couple for more than a decade? Severely damaged mental, emotional, spiritual and marital health. The upside? Ten years’ worth of frequent-flyer miles and American Express Membership Rewards points, which was more than enough to cover our airfare, car rental and four-night stay—and thank god, because how the hell else could anyone afford to take a four-star vacation in Key West during the second Great Depression?

It wasn’t until my ass was firmly planted in my First Class window seat that I finally took a deep breath, exhaled and started to believe that we really, truly, no shit, were actually going on a tropical vacation together.

Once on the ground in Ft. Lauderdale, we grabbed this puppy …

… and, with the top down, set out on one of the most scenic rides you could ever hope to take. As the miles ticked off and we crossed bridge after bridge from one island to the next, I could literally feel the stress draining from my body. By the time we reached Islamorada—roughly the halfway point—and stopped for lunch at this unbelievably picture-perfect place that I found online while planning our drive, we were in full vacation mode … as evidenced by this insanely effeminate/juvenile-looking drink, whose menu description caused me to suddenly and unexpectedly feel compelled to order it (the one on the right, and let me just say that no one should ever serve a grown man a drink garnished with maraschino cherries). As a devout tequila aficionado, I was surprised by my choice, which turned out to be an amazingly delicious and refreshing concoction of rum, pineapple and coconut mixed with rum, plus a bit of rum, and topped off with some rum.

Had we not had 80 more miles to go, I’d have gulped down two … dozen, that is.

After two more hours of a thoroughly enjoyable and wonderfully flirtatious drive during which the romantic mood was not once interrupted by crying, screaming, or a never-ending barrage of “When will we be therrrrrrrrrre?”s and “I want to be there right nowwwwwwwww!”s, we arrived at the Casa Marina Resort, and can I just tell you how much of an unbelievable relief it is to have the place you’ve staked your entire vacation on after having seen it only on the Internet turn out to be even more fantastic than you had hoped it would be? The place really is this gorgeous, and the spectacular, unobstructed, ocean view we were told we’d have from our room really was all of those things. This picture was taken from the balcony, and it does about as good a job of conveying how beautiful the setting was as I would do of capturing the Mona Lisa in a stick-figure drawing:

(Oh, and that little cabana thing in the bottom right corner? Yeah, that’s where Wonder Woman got an hour-long massage. I’m surprised I got her back on the plane for the return flight.)

From the minute we checked in until the (agonizingly painful) minute we checked out, everything was perfect. Our first morning there, we approached the towel dude/beach attendant in order to find out about getting some chairs and towels, and nearly fainted when he said “Just find a spot on the beach that you like and stand there, and I’ll bring you everything you need.” And, no shit, he really did.

It was all like that … from the gourmet dinner we had here on Friday night (and it is worth traveling to Key West just to have their Tuna Dome), and the other one we had here on Sunday night, to the Duval Street bar crawl we tackled on Saturday (book-ended by two lengthy stints at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, where we emptied out the healthy remainder of an open bottle of Cabo Wabo Reposado, and I don’t care that the place is a tourist trap; we loved it), the highlight of which was this spectacular sunset in Mallory Square, viewed from two seats that a mother and son inexplicably vacated just moments earlier, making them the only two seats available within a one-mile radius at just the right moment:

Aside from the handful of aforementioned excursions, we spent most of our time at the resort doing the following: sleeping (sans dual baby monitors) in an unbelievably comfortable king-size bed, and remaining there until well after sun-up; reading (reading! for fun! I almost forgot what that was like!) while relaxing in lounge chairs on the beach and/or hammocks strung between palm trees; and downing some tasty Piña Coladas at the poolside bar.

It was a like a second honeymoon … and not just because we hadn’t been away alone since our first one. This whole shooting match—the kids, our home, the marriage itself, and all of the exhausting challenges those things entail—all grew from us falling in love 15 years ago. When your day-to-day life makes you feel more like co-managers of a house/child-care facility than like lovers and friends, it’s hard to remember what that original connection felt like. After four days alone, I am happy to report that it’s even better and more fulfilling now than it was in the beginning.

And you can bet your sweet ass that we won’t be waiting another 10 years before taking our next trip together.